


"Something's Got to Change"

by Sherbs



Category: Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Genre: first change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 09:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19903279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherbs/pseuds/Sherbs
Summary: Family breakdown, leaving home, first change





	"Something's Got to Change"

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote up the backstory for a character I played for a long time. I'd always seen her first change as being the culmination of a process rather than a single event, a process of moving away from her old life and into a new world entirely.

"SOMETHING'S GOT TO CHANGE"

"Something's got to change around here"

He'd said, in that sad/angry/disappointed way which only parents and teachers ever seem to master, and she'd answered him back, said things she shouldn't, thrown down the glass she was holding, and leaving the fragments scattered across the kitchen floor, she'd bolted to her room.

When her mother came back she was lying on the bed, just waiting for the inevitable. She heard them talking downstairs, she heard him going out. Her mother came upstairs, she was angry, she went on and on about the drinks cabinet. Lying there she just blocked most of it out but one phrase got through;

" . . . looked after you like his own . . ."

Then suddenly her mother went silent, shut her mouth tight with a snap and her eyes went wide. Lying on the bed she watched her mother rush from the room before it fully registered and she had to follow. From the top of the stairs she yelled at the locked bathroom door;

"That's not fair, . . . come back,. . . what do you mean? . . .you can't just leave it like that"

but there was no answer. She kicked the door hard, splinters and flakes of paint flew but it did not open. She kicked it again and a voice from the bathroom came back:

"he was from Brecon, your dad, his name was Frank McAlistair"

She threw herself at the bathroom door but it would not give, nothing more came from inside. 

Back in her own room was a family photo, she screamed at it and threw it through the window; she saw herself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door, how could she have been that dumb?, noone in her family had red hair; she kicked the mirror, cracks appeared, shards fell out, the image disintegrated.

"Seven years bad luck, hah!" 

The door came away from the wardrobe and sailed across the room, down came pictures, postcards, ornaments and posters. Now blood smeared everything she touched from a gash on her hand. In the doorless cupboard was her rucksack. Crying, gasping for breath, she pulled it down and filled it with items scavenged from the destruction of her bedroom, clothes, a knife, her tin whistle and the vodka bottle from it's hiding place. Through the broken window, across the extension roof and away.

Life on the streets is cold and frightening, dangerous and uncomfortable, no wonder kids end up on the game or on drugs or both. If someone offers you a way to get warm and dry, real or imaginary, it's hard not to take it. When you feel like death and you can't find anywhere dry to crash out you've got to have a focus, something to keep you on track. She was looking for her dad, looking for answers, mostly she could keep that in front of her but when the nights were bad and she couldn't sleep for the rain and the wind and the nightmares there were ways to block everything out, at least for a while. This night it was really bad, she was staying in a squat near Brecon, an empty farmhouse with nothing working. An old woman told her she was sick, tried to get her to go home and she might have done but she couldn't stand up without coughing her guts up so she just stayed where she was, had another drink, and waited for it all to go away. 

When she could get about again she went looking, a man in a corner shop said he'd been in school with a Frank McAlistair but hadn't seen him for years. The man said his sister was still living nearby. Nearby seemed to mean something different to him than to the rest of the world. She kept looking, making enough from busking to eat and keep the nightmares at bay. Eventually she got an address and started walking. It was a long walk, up into the mountains; the mist came down and a wind got up and pretty soon it got dark. She found a place out of the wind under an overhanging rock, wrapped herself up in her sleeping bag and tried to sleep. This time even the drink didn't help much, in her dreams she tore up the mountainside with bloodstained hands, ripped apart some unnamed living thing, all the time urged on by voices she could not understand. The eyes were watching her again out of the dark, yellow eyes and red eyes, watching and waiting while she burned herself out and collapsed. 

Waking up, freezing cold, soaked by the damp ground, fog and sweat, coughing and choking. Get to her aunt's house, the only thing to do now. Gathering up her pack and leaving her sodden sleeping bag on the mountain, she set off again in the dark.

There was only one house, it had to be right and if it wasn't she no longer cared, she could still hear the whispering of voices in their secret language, there was no vodka left in the bottle so she threw it away. Walking uphill was hard, breathing was difficult, spitting blood now, she was going to pass out. Shaking so much it was hard to keep a straight line as she covered the last few yards to the door, reaching for the knocker she fell over the bootscraper and lost her balance. Someone came to the door, there were voices talking but she wasn't really sure which were real and which were not. Grasping at the last shreds of sense she said:

"I'm Frank's daughter" 

Waking up on a couch scared her, not knowing where she was. A small woman with red hair was standing by the window. Hearing the girl move the woman turned to look at her:

"You look a lot like Frank"

She sat up, her head swam and she gave it up and lay down again. The woman said:

"Stay there, they'll be here soon"

She stayed there, she didn't ask who. 

Waking up again, this time half-walking, half-carried to a jeep. There were men supporting her, she tried to struggle but it was too much effort. She collapsed into another coughing fit and they loaded her into the back. 

There were more dreams, real and painful, running, running, running through the undergrowth, chasing something through the mists; the voices that spoke to her were following now, creatures watching her; shapes of things she had never seen before. It seemed she towered over the rocks and bracken, a ravaging demon let loose on the mountain. Smaller creatures ran from her, some she killed, some she let go. Finally, she stood on the top of Pen-y-fan with blood on her claws; the mist lifted and the stars came out, she stood on the caern of rocks on the summit, the moon looking down at her, smiling . 

Waking up at last, lying on the ground, heaving and coughing together, struggling to breathe, struggling to get up. There were people with her, her aunt, the men with the jeep, and she was naked and bloodstained. Her aunt stepped forward with a blanket.

"Take her home" the man from the jeep said.


End file.
